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Comment by jeffhuys | Hacker News Reader

Still, when you’re due for a new car and look for the newest of the newest, would you go with manufacturer A, who released their latest car 8 years ago, or manufacturer B, who released it 1 year ago?

Incremental upgrades get so much hate around the internet (mostly about phones) by people having the version before it. Saying things like “ah they changed almost nothing! Why would I upgrade?!” While for instance me, only on my 3rd smartphone EVER, would love all the incremental updates over the years when I finally decide I need a new one, because I always get the latest and greatest. If a company then doesn’t release anything for a few years, I’d go somewhere else.

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The one with a reliability data for the past 8 years.

It's surprising to me that people would want to make a major financial decision like a car without knowing about its reliability history.

8 years of the same parts, repair knowledge, and continued software support?

Sign me up immediately.

> continued software support

Unfortunately due to the extremely minimal software rights that exist (see: proprietary software) this is pretty much nonexistent in cars AFAIK.

I would rather get a car that is old enough to not be limited by software constraints. Which is pretty disappointing, because I actually really like electric cars. I think they would work well for my needs. But they are all so intentionally kneecapped, I have no interest in any particular model that's available.

I would love a super bare bones electric car. One that functions the same as any late 90s/early 2000s era car would, except with an electric power train and maybe cruise control.

2011-2013? Nissan Leaf fits the bill.

This.

It's so thoroughly reverse engineered that if you decided you wanted to reconfigure the software so it would only drive at prime numbered miles per hour, you could.

Those cars are essentially illegal to sell in many countries.

What if the reliability is like "these bearings are known to fail every 10k miles or so, but we have no product refresh planned for at least 3 years so the problem will remain unresolved?"

This is what incremental improvements are supposed to be. Well that and discovering that the vehicle can last till the end of the warranty period with one less bolt in that spot, so you can eliminate it.

You are wrong and right. Wrong because continuous improvement is not about making a vehicle only survive a 3-5 year warranty period. Right because the master of continuous improvement have a 10 year warranty (20000 km, 12500 miles) where I live if you do service at a dealership or authorised service centre and I think this extended warranty influence the decisions about what minimum level of quality the manufacturer will accept.

> It's surprising to me that people would want to make a major financial decision like a car without knowing about its reliability history.

Some people will always be surprising, but it is pretty clear that the pickup truck is the most purchased type of vehicle (in North America) exactly because they have a much better reliability track record as compared to most cars. This idea doesn't escape the typical buyer.

> it is pretty clear that the pickup truck is the most purchased type of vehicle (in North America) exactly because they have a much better reliability track record as compared to most cars

The pickup truck is also deeply engrained in American culture as masculine, even if the owner does nothing that requires it.

Yes, it seems most products that gain a reputation for reliability end up taking on a "masculine persona", of sorts. Which I guess stands to reason as in popular culture reliability is what defines the "manly man".

In the case of cars and CPUs its not that people mind incremental upgrades, it is that they mind incremental upgrades sold as big upgrades.

For phones the mindset of people who upgrade when they have to and/or buy cheaper phones is very different from those who regularly upgrade to the latest flagship phone.

Case in point: A new car released 8 years ago, but with incremental upgrades (i.e. Mitsubishi RVR in NA), still won’t have the same fundamental design considerations around safety or fuel efficiency as a more recent model.

New models every year are fine if they're honestly labeled and have technologically reasonable compatibility.

Cars and phones meet those criteria a lot better than Intel CPUs. The problem isn't releasing things, it's the way they pretend every release is a big advance and the way they make the motherboards almost never able to upgrade.

Buying first gen models is always a crapshoot. Often same for last gen if they try to squeeze new capabilities into a platform it wasn’t intended for.

Tesla is particularly terrible but this has been true for every manufacturer.

You want a couple years for them to work out the kinks.

For sure A. I would never buy a car that is the first model year of a revamp. I would give them at least a year to work out the bugs.

Honestly, from a reliability standpoint, the ideal new car is one that had a major refresh ~2 years ago. By then most of the kinks should be worked out.

Or just pay attention to the warranty. If they guarantee it for 10 years, they probably expect it to run for 10+ years.

Car buyers aren't always so dumb. When we bought our car, I was fully aware that major updates to models happen only so often. We bought used (of course), and the "major update" was our major criteria, more so than the specific year release date. (We bought a 2014 model in 2018; the year they released significant safety improvements compared to the 2013 model.)

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